John Kennedy: Partick Thistle will give us a tough game

JOHN Kennedy is anticipating a tough game at Firhill tonight when Celtic face Partick Thistle and, with fixtures coming thick and fast, the first-team coach has suggested there could be changes again to the starting line-up.

Speaking ahead of the Hoops’ first away game of the 2017/18 Premiership season, the first team coach said: “I’ve always admired how Alan Archibald sets his team up. He’s someone who wants to play. He gets players in his team who are technical and can be an attacking threat.

“We had some good results there last year, but they gave us problems in those games. It’ll be a tough game. Going to Firhill always is, but the confidence is high and we’ll go into it looking to win it.”

With the first leg of the UEFA Champions League play-off match against FC Astana looming, Kennedy also stressed the importance of keeping the team fresh.

“There will probably be some changes again,” he said. “It’s about getting the balance with rotating the squad and making sure everybody’s getting enough game-time and preparation as we move forward.”

In light of the impressive performance against Kilmarnock in the League Cup, Kennedy insists that if any of the young players are given a start, they will be more than capable of delivering.

“It was a perfect example the other evening where we finished the game with five Academy players, plus you had Kristoffer Ajer and Kundai Benyu starting," he said. "We had a very young team but the performance level was still very high.

“It comes back to the way we’ve trained for the last 12 months in preparation for moments like this that the manager has full trust in anybody he throws in, so if we want to make changes the transition is simple and we’re still going to get a high level of performance.

“We know we now have a group of players who are pushing each other, challenging each other and if we need to make changes then so be it. We trust the players that are coming in.”